The Menendez Brothers | They Had It Coming

This episode contains descriptions and details that some listeners might find disturbing.

Listener discretion is advised.

It's just after midnight on August 21st, 1989, when the patrol car pulls up to the Beverly Hills Police Department.

The cop in the front seat gets out and opens the back door so that Lyle and Erik Menendez can follow them inside.

They're not under arrest, so there's no cuffs, no firm grip on their arms leading them into the station.

Still, the brothers are nervous.

After all, they've just killed their parents.

The bright lights inside don't calm the brothers down.

And with the bloody crime scene just a couple of miles away, the station is buzzing with activity.

Officers and detectives have been called out of bed to help with the investigation.

Murder in Beverly Hills is unusual.

A double homicide seems unthinkable to the bleary-eyed cops working the phones.

As the Menendez Brothers are guided past the front desk towards a narrow corridor, Lyle catches sight of the steel bars of a holding cell.

It's empty right now, but he knows that if he's not careful, it'll have two new residents before the night's over.

He shakes the thought off, though.

He can't think like that.

Not if he and Erik are going to survive this first test.

Erik goes into the interview room first.

He's more emotional than Lyle and asks if his older brother can come with them.

He doesn't want to be alone, but the detective tells Erik, no, he doesn't get company.

But for all Erik's nerves, the interview is fairly simple to navigate.

The questions are all about what happened earlier that night, and he just sticks to the story he and Lyle came up with.

They went to see a movie and got home after 11.

They smelled smoke as soon as they walked in the front door.

When they went into the living room and saw their parents, Erik explains he started screaming and Lyle called the police.

There are some more specifics the detectives want to know about.

Was the front door unlocked?

How did the gates open?

Does Erik have any idea about who might have murdered his parents?

At that point, Erik starts crying and asks if Jose and Kitty Menendez are really dead.

The detective stops asking questions soon after that and leads Erik back out into the hallway where Lyle's waiting anxiously.

Erik hugs his older brother, wiping his tears onto Lyle's T-shirt.

Then, quietly enough that no one else hears, he whispers that it's okay.

It's safe for Lyle to speak with the detective.

Lyle doesn't strictly need the encouragement, but it's nice to have as he walks into the interview room.

When the tape recorder starts, Lyle tells the same story as his brother, the movie, the smoke, the screaming.

Then he repeats some of the suspicions he voiced earlier outside their house about his father's work, the shady people he sometimes dealt with.

As he talks, Lyle starts to hint that things in the Menendez family aren't quite as perfect as they might have seen on the outside.

He shares a little too much, letting slip that his father calls all the shots at home, that he's very firm with his sons and that he mistreats his wife.

In the moment, these comments are easy for the detectives to ignore, just hints at everyday family drama and nothing more.

If the investigators were paying closer attention, they might have recognized that they had the killers sitting in the station all along.

But the moment passes, the interview ends, and the brothers are told they're free to go.

And so Lyle and Erik walk out of the Beverly Hills Police Department before the sun has risen, ready to start life in a world without Jose and Kitty Menendez.

As they walk down the steps of the building towards the parking lot, Erik turns to his brother in a daze to ask a simple, enormous question.

Now what?

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Thank It was a bizarre personal drama of a therapist and his lover that brought the Menendez Brothers undone in March of 1990.

When Judelon Smith went to the police to report her boyfriend, Dr.

Jerry Ozeal, for assaulting her and keeping her prisoner in his home, her story didn't seem to interest the authorities much at first.

But when she mentioned that Ozeal's clients, Lyle and Erik Menendez, confessed to him that they murdered their parents six months earlier, everything changed.

Within days, both brothers were in custody, and their arrests had made headlines around the country.

But while the prosecutors were the first to get their version of events into the papers, the trial of the Menendez Brothers eventually revealed a more complicated tale about what happened inside the mansion on North Elm Drive.

And depending on whether or not you believe the brothers, the real story was more shocking than two spoiled brats killing their parents for millions.

During the televised trial, the tale of the Menendez family sparked a nationwide debate over the nature of abuse and whether it could excuse murder.

Even as dozens of people lined up to corroborate Lyle and Erik's stories, armchair experts and zealous prosecutors insisted on painting with black and white, ignoring the shades of gray that filled out the picture.

Through it all, Lyle and Erik sat by as people fought over their actions.

To hear the brothers tell it, they had exactly one moment of independence and autonomy in their young lives, and they've been paying for it ever since.

This is episode four in our four-part series on the Menendez Brothers.

They had it coming.

It's the afternoon of Monday, March 12, 1990, more than six months after the Menendez murders.

In a wood panel courtroom in Beverly Hills, armed guards lead Lyle and Erik Menendez to their seats.

The brothers each cut a sleek figure, dressed in dark suits with slim ties.

Lyle has a round face and a plume of dark hair.

Mostly the toupee his father forced him to start wearing as a teenager.

Beside him, Erik's got dark curls and high cheekbones.

He looks more serious than his older brother, but they both crack a couple of smiles as they speak with their attorneys.

The seats in the courtroom are filled by journalists, except for a few family members there to show support for the brothers.

It's the first time Lyle and Erik have been seen in public since their arrest, and the media is desperate for shots of them.

In the months following the murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez, public interest in the case waned.

The investigation fizzled out and no one ever seemed to guess that the couple's sons might be the killers.

Now, however, everyone's eyes are once again focused on the family tragedy.

The media's fan the flames, with reporters and pundits eager to give their take on the Menendez family.

After a moment, the judge enters the courtroom and gets right to business.

She announces the case, the people of the state of California versus Erik Galen Menendez and Joseph Lyle Menendez.

One at a time, the judge addresses the brothers, reading the charges against them, the murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez for financial gain, while lying in wait with a firearm.

When the judge reads out their father's name, she stumbles over it, pronouncing it Jose.

Seconds later, she announces that the charges come with special circumstances, which means Lyle and Erik could each be sentenced to death.

In all, the proceedings last about 10 minutes, then the brothers are whisked out of the courtroom again.

It's their first time appearing before a judge over the murders, but it won't be the last.

Two weeks later, they're back in the same courtroom, ready to enter their pleas.

This time when they walk in, they see the faces of a dozen relatives from both sides of the family.

They smile encouragingly at Lyle and Erik, who stand when the judge calls on them, listening carefully as she again reads the charges.

This time, she doesn't mess up José's name.

But Lyle and Erik can't help but remember how she flubbed it the last time.

They grin as she speaks, used to a lifetime of people getting their father's name wrong.

With cameras trained on them, the quick smiles catch everyone's attention and within minutes of the hearing, pundits are already discussing the disrespect and arrogance of the murderous Menendez Brothers.

They smirked in the face of the justice system.

How dare they?

With the public eye fixed on them, it's a dangerous blunder.

The talking heads also latch on to the brothers' pleas.

By this stage, it's been several weeks since Lyle's arrest and the prosecutor's announcement that greed was the only motive for the murders.

With little else to go on, people around the country have no reason not to believe that's true.

But when they enter their pleas, the brothers signal that they're going to fight the charges against them.

That's when everyone starts chattering about what their defense could possibly be.

People assume the prosecution have got the boys cornered.

And to be fair, the evidence against them is pretty damning if it's admissible in court, that is.

The smoking gun the authorities have is actually a bundle of items.

The notes and cassette tapes from Dr.

Jerry Ozeal based on his sessions with the brothers following their initial confession.

When the police seized the tapes, they were supposed to be held by a court-appointed master until there was a ruling on their admissibility.

Standard practice for evidence like that.

But, Ozeal insisted that the investigators listen to the tapes right there in his living room, breaking his client's privilege.

Now, however, the brothers' lawyers are fighting the use of the tapes in court, hoping they'll be thrown out.

If that happens, the state's case will fall apart.

Even though Ozeal's former lover, Judeleon Smith, has told the detectives everything she knows about the brothers' confession, the authorities still don't have any physical evidence tying Lyle and Erik to the murders.

Judeleon has told the cops where the brothers said they got rid of the shotguns they used to kill Jose and Kitty, tossed down into the scrub off Mulholland Drive.

But a thorough search of the area has turned up nothing.

So everything comes down to the tapes.

The brothers' attorneys argue that Lyle and Erik never waived their right to privacy.

But the prosecutors assert that privilege was forfeited when the brothers allegedly threatened Dr.

Oseale.

Eventually, the courts side with the prosecution.

Sort of.

Some of the tapes are deemed admissible evidence, just not the one that actually features the brothers' voices.

Only Oseale's recorded notes will be heard in court.

That's enough to make denying the murders tricky for the defense.

But as the legal tussles drag on, the brothers' team become less concerned with Oseale's tapes because it's been decided that the brothers aren't going to deny that they killed their parents.

Instead, they're going to explain why.

While their case has made its way slowly through the courts, both brothers have been speaking with a forensic psychiatrist.

Over a number of months, the doctor slowly breaks through their barriers and starts to understand the Menendez boys' upbringing.

At first, Lyle and Erik keep quiet about their home life to protect their family's legacy, but the psychiatrist quickly guesses that they've both been living with extensive trauma for years.

Then the story emerges through small, disturbing details.

In his 12th session with the doctor, Erik reveals that Jose used to beat Kitty with a belt.

Erik could see the bruises on her legs and chest when she'd go swimming.

In the 25th session, Erik says that Lyle once walked in on Jose, raping Kitty.

He tied her to the bed.

Soon, Erik is revealing the full extent of the Dark Menendez family secret.

He and his brother were both sexually abused by their parents throughout their childhood.

After that, Erik and Lyle tell their lawyers, who want to know why neither of them turned to their relatives for help.

After all, that's a question that a jury will want the answer to.

But the brothers can't answer.

Today, people largely understand how difficult it can be for survivors of sexual assault to tell people what they've been through.

But that's not the case in the 1990s.

So the psychiatrist attempts to explain the situation to the lawyers.

According to the doctor, both brothers seem stunted after their upbringing.

Their actual ages don't line up with their emotional maturity.

So although they look like men, their ability to handle life experiences like family conflict is closer to that of a child.

Both in their 20s now, Lyle's equivalent emotional age is closer to 13 and Erik's is around 10.

Seen in that light, it's more understandable that the brothers felt like they couldn't tell an aunt or uncle what was happening.

They thought their parents were the only people they could talk to.

Once the defense attorneys have the full picture, they go on the offensive.

The prosecution has been shaping the narrative for years by this stage and it's time to let the public know what was really happening inside the Menendez home.

In July of 1993, over three years after the brothers' arrest, the Los Angeles Times publishes a front page story revealing the abuse.

The newspaper has been informed that the brothers' traumatic upbringing will be central to their defense.

Lyle and Erik will admit to killing Jose and Kitty, but their story will justify their actions.

At least that's what they hope.

The Menendez brothers will be tried at the same time in the same courtroom, but in front of two separate juries, one for each brother.

It's a choice the judge makes to save time and money.

But it adds another layer of complexity to the proceedings because some of the state's evidence relates only to Lyle, while some is just about Erik.

That means one jury will sometimes need to leave the courtroom so they're not swayed by the wrong information.

And Lyle and Erik will also require their own separate legal teams.

Different attorneys will have to work together as a united front.

After a thorough search, Lyle eventually settles on Jill Lansing, while Erik goes with Leslie Abramson.

Both women are skilled attorneys with excellent reputations, but it's Abramson who takes the lead, and her credentials couldn't be better.

She's one of the top death penalty lawyers in California, and has just recently secured a sentence of probation for another client who killed his father.

If anyone can win this case, it's Abramson.

When the trial begins on July 20, 1993, it's been almost four years since the murders of Jose and Kitty, and the public's hunger for the story has never been stronger.

The whole trial will be broadcast live on television, but on the first morning, people still line up outside the courthouse in Van Nuys, about six miles north of the family's Beverly Hills mansion, hoping to watch the drama unfold in person.

When the prosecutor, Pam Bozanich, makes her opening remarks, she repeats the same story the authorities have stuck to since arresting Lyle and Erik, that the brothers carefully planned and executed the murders so they could get their hands on their parents' wealth.

The defense attorney's arguments are much more complicated.

What Jill Lansing and Leslie Abramson set out to show is that on the night of August 20, 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez were afraid for their lives.

If they can convince the juries that the brothers acted out of a genuine belief that their abusive parents were about to kill them, then the end result should be manslaughter convictions, not murder.

To that end, the entire case comes down to a complicated web of conflicting testimony.

The prosecution's star witness is Erik's psychiatrist, Dr.

Ozil, so the defense teams make undermining him their first priority.

During cross-examination, the attorneys paint the psychiatrist as a fame-hungry narcissist who's all too eager to get his face on television.

Then they revealed to the jurors that Dr.

Ozil's license was on probation at the time he started treating the Menendez family in the summer of 1988.

That revelation is a blow to the therapist's credibility, and he never really recovers.

In total, Ozil is on the stand for six days, and each session is worse for him than the last.

One of the most damning moments comes when Erik's attorney, Leslie Abramson, plays the jury a tape of a phone call between Ozil and his secret lover, Judeleon Smith, from late 1989.

In the call, Ozil threatens Judeleon.

He says that unless she behaves the way he wants her to, he'll sick the murderous Menendez duo on her.

It's not good for Ozil, who suddenly looks like he could be a dangerous man himself.

By the time Ozil's testimony is finally done, the prosecution's case seems on shaky ground.

But the fight is far from over.

The juries might not like the state's key witness, but the defense still needs to convince them that the Brothers version of events is the true one.

It's time for the Menendez Brothers to take the stand.

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At the time, I only felt a punch.

I think everything went wrong.

His drug of choice was heroin.

Binging and purging over and over and over.

Evaluate you and if you're okay to go, they're going to let you go.

This is Justin and I do the Peripheral Podcast.

I have a true crime background, but when telling the stories of true crime, sometimes you have to gloss over topics like mental illness, drug addiction, sexual assault, and I feel like we do that in life too.

So this podcast is my attempt to bring all of these topics that are on the peripheral into the mainstream.

So please join me wherever you listen to the podcast.

It's just before 2 o'clock on September 10th, 1993.

The trial of the Menendez Brothers has been going on for almost two months, but everyone in the Van Nuys courtroom is alert as if it's the morning of the first day.

Defense Attorney Jill Lansing is asked to call her next witness, and it's dead silent as she announces that it's her client, Joseph Lyle Menendez.

Now 25, Lyle looks respectable in a blue button-down and navy sweater.

He makes his way to the witness stand.

He raises his right hand, swears to tell the truth, then takes his seat.

The questions start out simple, as Lansing asks Lyle about good memories of his childhood, of his parents, how he loved them both.

Then things pivot to the night of the murder.

Lyle's voice cracks as he admits that he and his brother killed Jose and Kitty, and that they did it because they were afraid.

Over the next few hours, Lansing asks Lyle more questions about his childhood.

The attorney has a voice and demeanor that you'd imagine might suit a nurturing high school teacher more than a criminal defense lawyer.

Her questions feel like they come from a place of genuine curiosity and concern for her client.

With her gentle prodding, Lyle covers Jose's aggressive parenting techniques.

And Kitty, he explains, was Jose's watchful lieutenant.

She'd tell Lyle she wished he'd never been born, and threaten to tell Jose if Lyle didn't do exactly what was expected of him.

Then things turn even more sinister.

From when Lyle was very young, his father brought home violent pornographic tapes and forced him to watch them together.

Jose also liked to make his own kind of pornography by taking photos of his son's naked bodies.

When Lyle was six, his father started telling him about soldiers who'd have sex with each other on the eve of battle, ancient Greeks mostly.

He'd explain that they, father and son, had that same kind of relationship.

Then, Jose started molesting Lyle.

It started out with massages and fondling, and evolved over time to include forced oral sex and what Jose called object sessions.

Eventually, things progressed to rape.

Terrified of his father, Lyle went to Kitty and begged her to make it stop.

His mother dismissed him.

Jose had to punish him, she said.

It was only right.

Eventually, she carried out her own form of abuse on her eldest son.

She insisted on bathing him until he was about 13, and liked him to come with her to bed and let his hands roam around her body in the dark.

Lyle didn't tell anyone about the abuse.

Jose warned him that bad things would happen to him if he spilled the secret, so Lyle kept it.

He didn't even tell his younger brother, but Erik would come to understand in time.

After nine days of questioning, Lyle finally returns to his seat at the defense table.

Then on September 27, Erik takes his place in the witness box.

In a blue shirt and burgundy pattern tie, he looks like a kid dressed in his father's clothes.

All through the trial, the brothers' team have dressed them in outfits to make them look younger than they are, a ploy to remind the jurors of the young boys who were abused by their father.

For the first few minutes on the stand, Erik's deep voice is steady, as his lawyer Leslie Abramson eases into her questions.

But when they finally get to the heart of the case...

Mr.

Menendez, you've heard the testimony of your brother that you and he killed your parents on August 20, 1989.

Yes, we did.

What do you believe was the originating cause of you and your brother ultimately winding up shooting your parents?

You telling what?

Me telling Lyle that...

You telling Lyle what?

Was it you telling Lyle about something that was happening?

My dad.

My dad, my dad had been molesting me.

And did you want something from your brother?

Is that why you told him?

After that, it all comes tumbling out.

Jose started molesting Erik when the boy was around six.

For whatever reason, Jose stopped assaulting Lyle at the age of eight, but Erik's nightmare just kept going.

All through his childhood, Erik was subjected to his father's violent sexual urges.

With his youngest son, Jose went even further than he did with Lyle, even allegedly pushing pins into Erik's genitals during oral sex.

Both Lyle and Erik cried during their testimony, as do several jurors and a number of the veteran journalists sitting in the gallery.

After that, the defense presents a parade of the brothers' relatives, teachers and family friends to corroborate their story.

One of the boys' cousins testifies that an eight-year-old Lyle told her Jose had been touching his genitals.

Alarmed, the cousin told Kitty, but Kitty did nothing.

Another cousin, Andy Cano, reveals that Erik told him about the abuse several times when they were both young, but swore him to secrecy.

The prosecution tries to poke holes in the defense's witness list, but there's a veritable army of people who all confirm what the brothers are saying is true, one after another.

But that's only half the battle.

Next, the defense has to convince the juries that the brothers genuinely feared for their lives on August 20th.

Only that can win them a favorable verdict.

So they put a psychologist on the stand, who testifies that abuse victims have a faster biological reaction to fear than people who haven't been traumatized.

She explains that repeated psychological trauma can cause hypervigilance, which means that a person is constantly searching environments for danger.

In other words, it's possible, believable even, that people who've been abused, like Lyle and Erik, could misinterpret signals from their abusers.

Especially when they know those abusers, their parents, own several guns.

By the time the defense finally rests on December 3rd, 1993, the trial has gone on for 20 weeks, with over 100 witnesses taking the stand.

Now it's time for closing statements.

When the lead prosecutor stands to kick things off, she sticks to the same argument.

Whatever happened to the Menendez Brothers doesn't excuse their violent response.

Nothing can, she says.

When talking about Erik, though, the prosecutors try an underhanded ploy.

They allege that he made the choice to be gay.

It's a theory they weren't allowed to present during testimony, but the rules are different for closing arguments.

They say that the abuse scenarios he described with his father were just experiences taken from Erik's, quote, homosexual lifestyle.

Even though there's no evidence that Erik is gay, the idea will prove to be a powerful 11th hour suggestion.

And if that weren't enough, the lead prosecutor later announces to the court that men, quote, cannot be raped because they lack the necessary equipment.

It's the prosecution's argument that because of this, the brothers could have nothing to fear from their father and no reason to kill him except for his money.

The defense lawyers are outraged by these scurrilous late remarks, but they stick to their strategy.

The brothers' attorneys remind the jurors that understanding what was going on in Lyle and Erik's heads on the night they shot their parents is key to deciding what kind of crime took place.

Were they scared for their own lives or not?

Hoping to underline the point, Erik's lawyer Leslie Abramson wonders aloud if things would be different if her client's name were Erica.

Would that make jurors feel differently about the abuse Jose committed?

Would fear be a more understandable emotion if the brothers were actually sisters?

That question is one of the last things jurors hear before they're sent off to deliberate, with instructions from Judge Weisberg that there's only four possible verdicts.

Guilty of first or second degree murder and voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

He tells them that there's no legal theory by which they can render a not guilty verdict.

So at this stage, Lyle and Erik's team have done all they can.

Now it's up to the juries.

The deliberations drag on for days.

From their opening discussions, both juries are evenly divided over the case, with half voting for murder convictions and half opting for manslaughter.

On Erik's jury, the women advocate for manslaughter while the men vote for murder.

Similarly, the men seem unconvinced by the brothers' claim of sexual abuse.

And more susceptible to the suggestion that Erik was gay and made things up.

Both sides in flexibility holds for weeks, with no one willing to change their vote.

Finally, on January 14th, Erik's jury returns to the courtroom and announces that they're deadlocked.

At this point, the judge declares a mistrial for Erik.

Two weeks later, Lyle's jury reports that they are also deadlocked.

Frustrated, the judge declares another mistrial.

In the wake of the news, the district attorney immediately vows that his office will retry the brothers.

The authorities are determined to get justice in the case.

The new trial begins almost two years later, on September 28th, 1995.

By this stage, it's been six years since Lyle and Erik killed their parents, and public interest in the case has waned.

But inside the courtroom, many of the same players are on the board.

The judge, the defendants, even attorney Leslie Abramson.

At the prosecutor's table, David Kahn has taken over for the DA's office.

He's better prepared than his predecessor, because he knows everything that happened in the first trial.

And he gets off to a strong start with a little help from Judge Weisberg.

In pretrial hearings, Weisberg stuns the defense by decreeing that the boy's history of abuse is irrelevant to the case.

So it can only be brought up if it relates directly to their state of mind at the time of the murder.

With most of the abuse evidence now excluded, the prosecutors opt for a different tactic.

At the first trial, the state's argument was that the abuse didn't excuse the shootings.

Now they contend that the abuse never even happened.

The whole thing is a crushing blow to the brothers' case.

The judge is essentially denying them the defense that worked at the first trial.

And if Lyle and Erik can't convince the new jury that they were abused, will the jurors believe the brothers' version of events?

So although on this first day the courtroom looks somewhat similar, the trial itself is set to be very, very different.

When it comes time for witness testimony, only the younger brother Erik takes the stand this time.

After the first trial, evidence emerged that Lyle once asked his friends to lie for him around the time of his arrest.

Putting him on the stand would open him up to questions about that and damage his credibility, so he stays on the bench while Erik, now 25, submits to questioning again.

But his testimony doesn't pack the same punch as it did two years earlier.

What's more, Lyle's silence means his team can't call the witnesses who spoke to his state of mind during the first trial.

In 1993, relatives, coaches, friends and therapists all corroborated the stories of Lyle's abusive upbringing.

Now, there's no one to speak for him.

As a result, there are fewer than half the witnesses on the defense roster for trial number two.

And when Leslie Abramson does manage to get people on the stand, prosecutor Kahn objects to almost every question, making it impossible for a complete picture to form.

The final blow to the brothers' case comes when Judge Weisberg tells the jury that they're only allowed to consider certain pieces of evidence in their deliberations.

He also rules that the brothers aren't entitled to a verdict of involuntary manslaughter, essentially whittling down the options to either first or second degree murder.

Outside the courtroom, Leslie Abramson is furious.

Her blonde curls shake as she tells reporters that Judge Weisberg has made himself the 13th juror, undermining the established jury system.

After that, the jurors spend just four days deliberating.

They don't even consider the sexual abuse allegations this time.

It's a non-issue for them.

On March 21, 1996, the court reconvenes to hear the verdict.

Erik holds tightly to Abramson's hand, staring forward as he waits.

Beside him, Lyle is stoic, his attorney's arm draped over his shoulder.

When the clerk announces that both brothers are guilty of first-degree murder, Erik looks up for a moment, then lets his head fall.

Lyle barely moves.

It's over.

There are only two possible sentences the Menendezes face, the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The prosecution fights hard for the brothers' execution, while their relatives plead for mercy.

They don't want any more bloodshed, especially not after what Jose and Kitty did to their children.

In early April, the jury returns with their final decision.

The brothers will spend the rest of their days behind bars.

After the ruling, the Beverly Hills PD requests that the brothers be housed in separate prisons, saying that they'll plot to murder again if they're allowed to stay together.

So, in September of 1996, Lyle and Erik are loaded into transport vans on opposite ends of the LA County jail yard.

Then, they're driven into the night without getting to say goodbye.

But although that might feel like the end of the saga of the Menendez family, it's not.

Even today, the story's not over.

There's still a chance that everything could change.

Ah, Asia, the land of contrast.

So mysterious, so diverse, so peaceful, so safe.

But seriously, is that how it really is?

While Asia is 100% filled with amazing people, culture, food and landscape, it is also home to crazy legends, superstitions and, of course, atrocious crimes.

The Asian Madness podcast covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from silly weird things to unimaginable horrors.

Why is a murder case nicknamed the Hello Kitty Murder?

Why do people avoid picking up random red envelopes on the streets?

And who are the most infamous serial killers you've probably never heard of from Asia?

If any of that sounds interesting, search for and subscribe to the Asian Madness Podcast on your favorite podcast app.

Gather round, friend, and join me by the fire.

I have a secret to share.

When I was a child, I lived with my grandma.

She allowed me to watch Unsolved Mysteries.

Fast forward to 2008, my freshman year of college.

A series of armed robberies on campus escalated into a serial rapists reign of terror.

That's when I created my first crime podcast.

In January 2014, I picked up the podcast again.

From my college roommate who fell for an underage girl online, to the chilling story of a murdered nun in 1969 Baltimore, and in the Throwaway series, I share my own journey of overcoming homelessness and how that experience led me to unmask a serial killer and identify three of his Jane Doe victims.

This is Foul Play Crime Series, where the stories are real and the truth is waiting to be discovered.

The 1995 conviction of Lyle and Erik Menendez came with little fanfare.

Partly because the second trial wasn't televised like the first one was, but there was another factor at play as well.

The first Menendez trial was a contender for the superlative trial of the century, but the second wasn't even a contender for trial of the year.

That's because it began right when the nation's attention was fixed on the murder trial of OJ.

Simpson.

The Simpson courtroom drama and his eventual acquittal was just the latest in a series of controversial trials within Los Angeles.

The first was over the beating of Rodney King, a black man who was set upon by a group of LAPD officers in 1991.

Although the four cops were charged over the incident, which was videotaped by a bystander, they were all acquitted by the mostly white jury in 1992.

The verdict stunned the nation and sparked six days of deadly riots across LA.

People wondered how a jury could have possibly reached that conclusion, igniting fierce debate about racism in the justice system.

The mayor of Los Angeles called the verdict senseless, and President George HW.

Bush said he was stunned.

Then, during the riots, a group of four black men dragged a white truck driver onto the street and beat him almost to death.

At their trials, each of the assailants received jail time, contrasting the fate of the white cops who beat King.

So by the time the first Menendez trial began, the wider public was almost expecting another divisive verdict.

As the proceedings unfolded on live TV and then were picked up over the evening news and talkback radio, there was a general belief that Lyle and Erik Menendez were guilty as sin no matter what claims they made about sexual abuse.

It seemed everyone had an opinion about whether the brothers were telling the truth, and many clearly thought it was all a lie.

They dismissed it as the abuse excuse, which was an idea that was fresh in the minds of the American people during the summer of 1993 during the brothers' first trial.

That's when a woman named Lorena Bobbitt was arrested for cutting off her husband's penis, then claiming she did it in retaliation for years of domestic abuse and rape.

When the first Menendez juries failed to reach a verdict, journalists published think pieces about the gender divides in the two groups and dissected the trial, looking for clues about what contributed to the legal draw.

Journalists and legal experts even speculated about how Leslie Abramson's forceful personality in the courtroom and motherly affection towards Erik might have alienated male jurors while endearing the women in the room.

That's the level of discussion that was taking place during and right after the initial trial.

Following the mistrial, the district attorney was determined to secure a conviction against the brothers.

It's what he believed the people of California wanted from their justice system.

But to do that, prosecutors turned a case full of shades of gray into a story of black and white.

The brothers were not abused.

The brothers were greedy.

The brothers were murderers.

And by eliminating the defense's ability to explain their actions, they got what plenty of people thought was a fair outcome.

In the eyes of the law and a jury of their peers, the Menendez Brothers were guilty.

So the fact that they were going to spend the rest of their lives behind bars just felt right.

Following the convictions, the brothers launched an appeal, but their lawyers arguing that the limitations placed on their defense was grounds for a new trial.

The process lasted for years, until it reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005.

There, the Menendez case went before a panel of three judges, whose job it was to weigh the merits of the initial rulings.

The judges challenged the attorneys on both sides, who argued about whether the trial's initial judge, Stanley Weisberg, should have allowed certain evidence at the second trial.

At one point in the appeal hearing, Justice Alex Kozinski suggested that what the prosecution did at the second trial, excluding most of the evidence that supported the brothers' defense, was quote-unquote, distasteful.

Even so, the court turned down Lyle and Erik's appeal, effectively ending their bid for a new trial.

After that, not much happened with the case for another decade.

But then, almost out of nowhere, new developments arose to give the brothers fresh hope.

In 2017, a scripted mini-series about the case aired on NBC.

The successful series offered a fresh look at the brothers' account of what happened.

Where once the public had been skeptical of Lyle and Erik's claims, now, many were more sympathetic.

Just a few months later in 2018, after repeated applications for transfer, Lyle and Erik were finally reunited in the same prison after 22 years apart.

That same year, the brothers' aunt, Marta Cano, was going through the belongings of her late son Andy when she made an alarming discovery.

In both trials, Andy testified that Erik had repeatedly told him about the ways Jose was abusing him when they were both young teenagers.

At the second trial, the prosecution insisted that the stories of abuse were all fabricated because there simply wasn't any proof.

But among Andy's things, Marta discovered a letter that Erik wrote to his cousin about eight months before Jose and Kitty's deaths.

In it, Erik confided that the abuse was still happening, and it had even gotten worse.

The letter seemed like evidence backing up the brothers' claims, making it a compelling reason to consider a campaign to free the brothers.

But that push didn't gain real momentum until 2023.

That's when a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo came forward with allegations of his own about Jose Menendez.

In a documentary about the legendary music group, which Jose fought hard to sign to RCA Records in the 1980s, Roy Rosello stated that Jose raped him when Rosello was just 13.

After the documentary aired, attorneys for Lyle and Erik filed a petition with the Los Angeles County Superior Court to have their convictions vacated or to grant the brothers a new trial.

The appeal stated that the shootings were not murder, but manslaughter.

Their filing cited the new evidence that Jose was a sexual predator, as well as the letter Erik wrote to his cousin in 1988.

From the outside, it would seem only fair the brothers should at least get a new trial, one that includes all the new evidence, along with what was barred from the second trial.

After all, society's attitudes towards survivors of sexual abuse have evolved in the decades since the original hearings.

The MeToo movement has seen powerful predators brought to justice after years of unchecked attacks.

Courts have even ruled in favor of survivors who killed their abusers.

But changing the fate of Lyle and Erik Menendez will be an uphill battle.

Even if the new evidence supports their claims of abuse, and societal changes have made the brothers more sympathetic figures, they still have to convince the courts to reverse a conviction.

Something legal experts say judges don't like to do.

As of this recording, there's no ruling on that petition.

So, while all eyes are fixed on the Los Angeles courts once more, there's nothing anyone can really do now but wait.

At the end of Lyle and Erik's second trial, defense attorney Leslie Abramson said to the jury, I could sob for an hour.

If only I had a time machine, I could go back and grab them.

She wanted to save them all, the brothers from their parents, the parents from their sons.

If only it were that easy.

All anyone can do is wonder whether things would be different today.

If the story of the Menendez family were happening now, the entire trajectory might be changed.

Jose might not feel a powerful, violent urge to prove himself a success.

Kitty might have the tools she needs to leave her unhappy marriage.

Lyle and Erik might have escaped the cycle of abuse thanks to adults in their lives who learned how to recognize the signs.

The brothers might never have feared hearing their father's footsteps outside of their bedroom doors.

They might never have bought the shotguns, might never have squeezed the triggers.

But if none of those things changed and the murders still happened, would the outcome differ today?

Would Lyle and Erik Menendez now enter a justice system better equipped to handle their case?

Would the prosecutors, jurors, judge, journalists, radio hosts and comedians know better than to dismiss allegations of sexual abuse?

Or would it all stay the same?

Perhaps this is where the Menendez story was always going to end.

Not with accountability and healing, but with bloodshed and regret.

From Airship, this is episode 4 in our series on the Menendez Brothers.

Next on American Criminal, in a special interview episode, we learn more about the Menendez Brothers, the crime, the trial, and what justice might mean when it's televised.

If anything in today's episode hit close to home, or you just need someone to talk to, there are free resources for you.

We put links in the show's description.

If you'd like to learn more about the Menendez Brothers, we recommend The Menendez Murders, the shocking, untold story of the Menendez family and the killings that stunned the nation by Robert Rand, Hung Jury, The Diary of a Menendez Juror by Hazel Thornton, and the documentary series Menendez and Menudo, Boys Betrayed.

This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details.

And while in most cases we can't know exactly what was said, all of our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited and produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio editing by Mohammed Shazib.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan, managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson and Lindsay Graham for Airship.

We all love pop culture, but you know what?

It can be exhausting.

And you know what there isn't enough of is actually funny working comedians talking about all the stuff that we love and, to be honest, love to hate.

From what's trending online with celebrities to what's trending online, well, because TikTok told us so.

Hi guys, I'm comedian Justin Martindale, the host of the Just Saying podcast with Justin Martindale on the Comedy Store Network, the Mecca of comedy.

And each week I sit down with some of the funniest people you know and we talk about all of the things happening right now in pop culture.

And we have the best guests from Leslie Jones to Katya to Zaynab Johnson and Pete Holmes.

We have them all.

We break down the hottest stories, the drama, and are unafraid doing so and say what everybody else is thinking.

Just Zayn with Justin Marndale coming to you live on the Sunset Strip from the Comedy Store in West Hollywood.

So check us out on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll see you there.

You won't be disappointed.

Just Zayn.

See you again.